You Learn
by J. Maria
Summary: You gotta pick it up somewhere, so you might as well learn it the hard way.
1. Default Chapter

Title: You Learn

Author: J.Maria (Jill)

Rating: PG-13 - R-ish

Disclaimer / Spoilers: Joss, J.K. and a whole bunch of others own them all. . .and Alanis owns the title

Summary: It's easier not to question the talking paper . . .I think?

A/N: My Mind has gone completely insane and refuses to let me work on anything else but new stuff. I was going through my old files when I found a bunch of challenges, and this one struck me. . . I have no clue who proposed it ( but I think it was Jinni) and I know Polgara did a story along the same lines (Across the Pond, awesome fic by the by) So here's the challenge:

Challenge #4: Pen Pals  
  
The BtVS/AtS character of your choice and the crossover character of your  
choice become pen pals.  
  
How does it happen?  
Why do they discuss?  
Do they ever meet?  
Is romance in the air? Or just friendship? Maybe intense dislike?

**__**

You Learn

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Part One

"How many times have I warned you, young lady, not to mess with things in Magic shops?" The man demanded, wagging the leather bound notebook at her. She was supposed to feel bad for it, but if he was honest with himself, he'd realize she had that same look he'd seen a million times on her sister's face. She gave a small snort.

"Oh, please. Giles, it's a harmless diary. The guy at the shop assured me that it wasn't evil, or anything."

"What shop was it, Dawn?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Didn't catch the name of it, but it had three W's, kind like that wrestling show Xander used to watch."

"I'll be able to find it, then."  
"Find it? Why?"

"To return it, Dawn." He sighed heavily.

"But you can't, Giles!" Dawn couldn't help whining a little bit. "It's just a journal. C'mon, it's harmless."

"Just a journal? Five years ago, a girl was possessed by a magical diary. She very nearly died."

"Fine." Dawn rolled her eyes angrily, stomping out of the room and to her own.

"Teenagers." Rupert Giles sighed heavily, closing the hotel room door behind him.

He wearily made his way down into the pub that led to the street where his young charge had purchased the journal. Personally, he wanted to wring the clod who sold the non-magical girl a most definitely enchanted text. But then, his mother might strangle him in retaliation. He clutched his cloak more tightly around himself to fend off the slight breeze that picked up.

He stopped in front of the store he'd come to loathe in the past twenty-five minutes since he'd found Dawn with the journal. Two red-haired men sat talking over an open till, their heads bent over two pieces of parchment.

"Sorry, mate, we're closed." The one with a quill in his hand said.

"We open at ten tomorrow, though." The one floating the money into large bags with the Gringotts Bank crest on them continued.

"Be sure to come back then." The first one looked up then, at Giles harsh reply.

"I shall certainly not leave. At least, not until you two wretched beasts take this monstrosity back." He yelled, waving the journal at them.

The red haired men looked at each other before breaking out into huge grins. They quickly charmed the quill and money to finish out their tasks as they leaped over the counter. They rushed the older man, in a fashion that reminded him of two overeager pups.

"Oh, get off, you two. You act as if you haven't seen me in decades."

"Feels like that, Uncle Rupes." George Weasley grinned broadly.

"Mum warned us you'd be back in town, told us to steer clear of her trouble making baby brother, she did." Fred wore a grin identical to that of his twin.

Giles sighed heavily. Molly had never truly forgiven him for forsaking England for America when he'd been assigned to America eight years ago as watcher to Buffy Summers. But then, he'd been very deeply connected to the Council back then, and their father had instilled the strong work ethic for the council in his Squib son, just as he preached Dumbledore's praise to Molly. Molly still held her loyalty to him on her sleeve. But Rupert himself had lost his faith in the Council long ago. Now, along with his slayer, he was head of the Council.

"Yes, well back to the matter at hand." Giles shoved the journal into George's hand and watched as the twins began tossing it about as if it burned their fingers. "You can take that back for one." He barely caught the nervous glances they were shooting each other.

"Well, you see -"

"The thing is -"

"We _Can't_." They said emphatically, tossing the journal back at him.

"And for God's sake, why not?"

"Orders." They replied as one.

"From whom?" Giles narrowed his eyes.

"Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore order you two to give an enchanted diary to a muggle girl? After that fiasco that your sister went through with Voldemort's diary, I'd think you two would know better than too mess with such magics."

"She was a muggle?"  
"What was she doing in Diagon Alley, then?"

"She is under my charge. And it's none of your business."

"So, she's a slayer then?" George asked.

"No. She is not. And you two are avoiding answering me."

"Dumbledore got the idea from the Diary. Only a dozen or so are getting them. Only two people can actually use the diaries, cos there are two copies of each diary. And Dumbledore knows who's getting what." George explained.

"It's all triggered by emotional distress and auras or something."

"And since in these times, so many people are looking for a cheap -" George continued.

"But well constructed." Fred interjected.

"Gag in their life, he figured we'd be the best place to distribute them."

"Which also gives us a minor -" Fred began

"But significant and well placed -"

"Role in the fight against evil. 'Specially since Mum's banned us and Percy -" Fred couldn't quite help muttering that name.

"If that filthy wanker ever rejoins us -" George spat venomously

"Out of the battles."

"But Ginny and Ron get to go off to battle." George rolled his eyes. When they noticed that their uncle hadn't said anything in quite a few minutes, George continued, "And Ginny got one as well. Journal, so we had to fill her in about it. If she'd comfortable with it, you should be as well."

"Yeah, George and I know everyone who's gotten a journal."

"Harry, Ginny, and a couple other respectable people." George replied.

"And this journal's mate probably hasn't been given out yet."

"We only passed out five, and the rest weren't purple. And believe us, we had a hell of a time explaining why they were getting it. Harry got the watered down truth, and Ginny got the full truth."

"But it is safe? It's not going to be like that candy you two gave me that mad me hallucinate that I was a Canary, now is it?"

"No."

"Fine. I've got to get going." Giles said grudgingly. "Tell your Mum that I'll try and pop by the Burrow for supper or something."

"We'll have her owl you."

With that, he hugged his nephews and turned to leave. The journal was tucked firmly under his arm. Giles had been gone for several minutes before the twins spoke amongst themselves.

"Do you think we should have told him that Malfoy got one as well?" Fred asked as George picked up the quill again.

"Naw, 'sides Malfoy's was green and had a different symbol."

"That's what worries me."

"What is?"

"Well, Ginny had the same one as him."

"I thought she had a red one, like Harry?"

"No, that Hufflepuff girl had the red one."

"Hmm. I wonder who'll get the other purple one then."

"I guess we'll find out."

"Guess we will. C'mon then. Let's get the till over to Gringotts. They close in five." George grinned as he apparated out of the shop. Fred grinned as he disappeared from the shop with a large popping noise. They would never get sick of being able to do that.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: You Learn

Author: J.Maria

Rating: PG-13 - R-ish

Disclaimer / Spoilers: Joss, J.K. and a whole bunch of others own them all. . .and Alanis owns the title

Summary: What are you playing at?

A/N: Okay, so here's the sitch. I know the challenge (see part one) says to limit the focus on just two people, but there's gonna be snippets from each of the groupings. And there is also no slash or femslash. I don't write it well, so I've held off trying to write it. This also focuses on characters you might not care for, or think are kinda stupid. Another thing, certain facts in the story are being tweaked, specially about certain characters. Don't like that, well then tough. I also don't know how many parts this will be so, well. . . on with the show

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Part Two

Dawn was ecstatic that Giles had relented and let her keep the journal. She all but jumped up and down with joy. These last few weeks had been very rough, adjusting to L.A., then Cleveland, then London, and now, as Buffy told her, she'd have to pack up everything again to get ready to move to Rome. Dawn wished desperately that she could just stay here in London, but Buffy was all wigged out about the Council bombing the year before. So now she was off to Rome in two days. She sighed, but at least those cute red-headed guys had given her the journal. She wondered just what they had told Giles to make him let her have the journal. She reached for the key to the small brass lock on the journal, but it wasn't where she had left it.

"That's just freaky." she muttered, as she made a mad dash around the room to try and find it.

Luna Lovegood was not the kind of girl the Weasley twins expected to see in their shop. For one, they'd spent a fair amount of her life calling her Loony Lovegood. For another, the black journal was positively vibrating to fly to her. They half-expected the purple one or the blue one to call to her, but instead the black (and yet unpaired one). Luna put her items on the counter and pulled the few sickles from her pocket.

"Hullo Luna." Fred said politely.

"Fred." she replied, nodding to him. "Afternoon, George." Luna nodded to him as well.

"That'll be ten sickles total." George said hurriedly, prodding his brother under the counter.

"And as a special gift, we've been handing out prototypes of our newest project." Fred added, pulling the black journal out and laying it on the counter for her to take.

"I've heard about your prototypes. No thank you." she pushed the sickles toward to register.

"No, Luna this one isn't like the canary creams or anything." George said.

"They're kinda like normal diaries -" Fred added.

"Ginny told me about You-Know-Who's diary. No thank you." Luna pushed her money forward.

"Ginny's got one of them. Harry as well. They're safe." George blurted.

"What have you done to them?"

"Enchanted them. They're communication devices, like Hermione's DA coins -"

"'Cept you actually write in them rather than press them -"

"She and Gin actually gave us the idea -"

"And it's free."

"You really want _me_ to have it?" Luna's eyes narrowed.

"Merlin, yes."

"We can expect a decent review of them from you."

"Who has the matching one?" Luna asked.

"No one."

"Yet, but it's still early."

Luna gently fingered the spine as if it would bite her. She withdrew her hand as if it had been burnt. She thought it over for a few minutes.

"Knock three sickles off my bill and I'll take it."

"Three sickles!" They cried.

"You're awfully eager for me to take it. How do I know it's not a mean and cruel trick you want to play. Knock off three sickles or I walk out of here with all ten in my pocket and without the journal."

"Fine." George said grudgingly.

Albus Dumbledore rubbed tiredly at his eyes. Fawkes nudged his head against his hand. Albus spared the phoenix a tired smile as the parchment glowed brightly before him as another name was added to his list. He had given the Weasley twins nine journals, leaving five in his possession. A silver one, a black one, two copper ones, and a blue one. The Weasleys had already given out their red and green pairs, a purple, and a black diary. Albus' copper one was being delivered as he idly scratched Fawkes' crest. He wondered how the girl was coping.

Faith pressed her head against the cool wood below her. It was one of many wooden objects surrounding her young and hostile life. It was the wood of the stake that pierced the vicious vampires that would kill her, it was in the sturdy branch where her Mama used to push her on the old tire swing, it was in the baseball bat that had connected with her face when she was thirteen and mouthed off to one of her Mama's old men. The ones who beat her Mama. It was in the wooden two by four she'd rammed in the chest of Kakistos, that sick bastard who'd killed her watcher Jessica Hastings. It was the cheap wooden coffin her Mama laid in, rotting away to nothing.

And it was the coffin her head was leaning on now. The coffin of one of the only man would made her ever think she was worth something, and worth an effort to get to know. Now she was as much an outcast as she'd been before among the Scoobies. She was out of sync. And all because Wood was gone from her forever.

She'd only known him for a few very short months, but it felt nice to be known as something other than evil Faith. And now because she hadn't been quick enough, he was gone. Now she waited, seeing if he would come back from death like the monster that had killed him. She waited hours, her head pressed against the coffin. She didn't know if she had the strength to kill him if it came to that.

The sun came up on the third day, but he didn't. His coffin hadn't moved, _he_ hadn't risen. Only then did she let them bury him in the slayer's cemetery, his body buried beside his mother's.

As she mourned, a snowy white owl flew overhead, a copper colored journal attached to it's leg. The letter went to Giles and the journal to her.

A/N: Okay, rundown on who's got what.

Red: Harry, Hufflepuff girl

Green: Draco, Ginny

Blue?

Purple: Dawn?

Black: Luna?

Silver?

Copper: Faith?


End file.
